How to Remove Your WordPress Site from Google Search

If you find yourself needing to remove your WordPress website from Google’s search engine, there are a few ways to do it. Perhaps you’re doing some updates or rebranding, have accidentally shared sensitive information, or have shut down the site entirely. Regardless of the reason, correctly and effectively removing a site or pages from Google search is essential to ensure compliance with webmasters’ guidelines.

Step 1: Block the Entire Site

The most effective method for removing your entire WordPress site from Google search is to block it via Google Search Console. Follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Google Search Console account.
2. Select the website you want to remove from Google search.
3. Click on “Settings” on the left-hand panel.
4. Select “Site Settings.”
5. Under “Google Index,” select “Remove URL.”
6. In the “Temporarily Remove” section, select “New Request.”
7. Enter the URL of the website you want to remove from Google.
8. Select “Remove this Directory” from the drop-down options.
9. Click “Continue” to proceed.
10. Choose an appropriate reason for the removal.
11. Click “Submit Request.”

Google will remove the URL from its search engine, but this process is temporary and will last up to six months. After six months, the URL may reappear in Google search results.

Step 2: Block Specific Pages or Directories

If you only want to remove specific pages or directories, follow these steps:

1. Go to your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Click on “Settings” then “Reading.”
3. Scroll down to “Search Engine Visibility.”
4. Uncheck the box next to “Discourage search engines from indexing this site.”
5. In the “WordPress SEO by Yoast” plugin, go to the “Titles & Metas” section.
6. Click on “Post Types” and select “Noindex” for the pages in question.
7. Publish the settings.

This will prevent Google’s search engine bots from crawling and indexing the pages, as it instructs search engines not to index these pages.

Step 3: Submit a Request to Google

Another method to remove URLs is by submitting them manually through Google Search Console. This method is suitable for removing individual pages or URLs from Google search results.

1. Sign in to Google Console.
2. Go to the “Index” tab.
3. Click on “Coverage.”
4. Select the page that needs to be removed.
5. Copy the URL of the page.
6. Go to the “Removals” tab.
7. Click on “New Request” to remove the URL.
8. Paste the URL in the dialogue box.
9. Click on “Next.”
10. Check the box next to “Remove page from search results and cache.”
11. Enter the reason for the removal.
12. Click on “Submit Request.”

Google will send a notification once the page has been removed from the search engine index.

Conclusion

Overall, removing a WordPress site or pages from Google search results is a simple process. It’s crucial to follow the correct protocol to ensure that Google recognizes the requests and removes the URLs from the search results. Keep in mind that removing pages from Google’s search results is not instantaneous, so it may take some time before the pages are entirely removed.